The technology of manufacturing a mask pattern greatly affects the accuracy of a pattern formed on the semiconductor substrate.
Especially, if optical proximity effect of the mask pattern is not appropriately considered, the line width of the pattern is distorted during a photo lithography process, causing the linearity of the critical dimension to be short.
In addition, as a semiconductor device is miniaturized, the pattern is damaged by the optical proximity effect related to adjacent patterns during the photo lithography process.
Hence, various methods, which minimize the distortion phenomenon of light, such as optical proximity correction (OPC) and phase shifting mask technologies are being employed. The OPC technology compensates for the problem of light diffraction using a pattern, and the phase shifting mask technology improves an optical contrast to enhance the resolution.
Although the various methods are employed, the resolution problem of fine line widths is not easily solved. As a result, a photoresist layer pattern is chemically and physically stressed during the photo lithography process. The capillary phenomenon generated during a development process is a representative example. The greater the aspect ratio of the height to the width of the pattern, for resolution, and the fineness of a line width pitch, the greater the capillary phenomenon causing pattern collapse phenomenon during development, washing, and drying processes.